The Seventysixth Annual Hunger Games
by TimeLady Potter
Summary: I am Madge Undersee. I volunteered for Prim in the 74th Hunger Games and life has been rough ever since. Now, that I didn't have the heart to kill Snow, I have to face the consequences. Face the fact that the Mockingjay couldn't fly, and now her wings have been cut off. *WILL INCLUDE POSSIBLE MULTIPLE CROSSOVER FANDOMS i.e. Doctor Who, Harry Potter, etc.


Running. That's all I can think of doing. The only logical thing to do, just not yet. Not quite yet. My ears only partially listen as I hear the last numbers of the countdown I heard twice prior were cast into the tense air, growing tension each number. Finally the numbers reach zero, and I run. I run away from the metal object in the middle that has haunted my dreams ever since I had done this the first time.

While I'm running, I have one mission. Find Peeta. At all costs. Find him and protect him. I run through the woods, and to a little patch of the greenest grass when I hear heavy breathing by me. I have been around that breathing enough to know who it is. I quickly run and embrace Peeta in a hug, scared for my life (Which isn't a new feeling. It's getting quite old).

"Don't scare me like that!" I quickly yell at him as I playfully hit him on the arm.

He says to me with a smirk, "I had to try and get supplies, didn't I?" As he finished, he swings over a small backpack from his back. The backpack is black with many pockets in it. My lips curl in a smile as I reach in the bag and find food that could last us days. Good. We won't have to hunt for about a week. I also find a small knife and a sheath of arrows, but no bow. I looked at the arrows, a feeling of emptiness in the pit of my stomach.

"Madge?" Peeta starts, "I'm going to go hunt, okay?"

I look at him confused. "Why? We have plenty of food, enough to last the week, maybe even more."

"I just… have a feeling I should." he says. With that, he picks up the small knife and paces away, his footsteps quiet thanks to this being his third time in the games.

I wait patiently for my love to return, but the skies are darkening so I give up hope he will return before I fall to sleep. I know he's not dead, or the cannon would have sounded, so I carefully set the backpack against a tree and start to sleep.

Not even five minutes after I laid down, I hear the sound I had been dreading. _BOOM!_ Only one. Tears springing from my eyes already, I follow the trodden footsteps in the mud to where I expected to find Peeta, hoping he would hug me in his warm embrace and tell me not to worry, that everything is fine, that we can win again.

These hopes crash to the very arena floor as I see the hovercraft right above me, and right above Peeta Mellark's mangled body. The tears multiply as I kneel down to hug my boyfriend one last time before the hovercraft takes his body to be dressed for the funeral. I silently kiss three of my fingers and hold them up over his body, as a District 12 tribute. I back away for them to take his body, then I run. Running harder than ever before. I grab the backpack Peeta had gotten and found the arrows. I look at them, more pointed than usual this year. I slowly pick one up, the point facing me. _I can't live without him _I think to myself as I drive the arrow back, then fastly pierce it into my own heart.

As soon as my eyes flutter open I spring up, thinking I was still in the games. Thinking Peeta was still dead, the first dead of the games. Then I realize that there is proper bedding under me and a blanket on top, not to mention a pillow from where my head just was, now damp from my sweating. I must have been screaming, because Peeta was right by me, looking at me with a worried look.

"Are you okay, love?" he asked me in his soft, gentle voice.

"I… I think so…" I stutter, fearing to blink for fear of images of the dream.

"It was just a dream. Just a dream, Madge." he smiles gently, trying to calm me down from the dream. "What happened this time, if I might ask?"

I feel the tears come down my cheeks again as I tell him. "You went hunting… I heard the cannon and you were dead… A m-mangled h-heap…" I could say no more, for tears had taken over from remembering how real it felt.

"I'm right here, Madge. I'm not dead, I'm alive and with you. And I will never leave you." he grabbed my hand as he spoke, slowly sliding the ring on my ring finger that he had put on there not long after we had been trapped here. I smile as I look down at it.

"And when these games are over," smiles Peeta, his gentlest smile yet, "my mother won't be the only Mrs. Mellark." He winked at the end of this, to a suppressed giggle from me.

"Can't wait. It's only a couple of weeks away, you know…" I speak with a smile on my face, now getting up from the bed I've been sleeping in for the past weeks, maybe even months. I have lost count by this point. It's not exactly a prison, but it is. It's the tribute training center. We were brought here after I failed. I failed the rebellion because I couldn't kill anyone. Because that stupid little Undersee girl, who won two Hunger Games in a row, couldn't kill off the man who put her through all of that. Because Madge Undersee, the girl who had a big enough heart to volunteer for her best friend's sister when she was called, now both her friend and her friend's sister dead, had a heart too big and couldn't kill the man and woman with no heart at all.

"We need to train." Peeta said with a speck of worry across his rough bakers face. "If we even want a chance at who knows who will be there, we have to be the best we can be."

I nod a slow nod, a few locks of my hair falling to my face. Peeta moves the locks from my face so we can see eye to eye. I look into those brilliant blue eyes as he stared into my eyes. I suddenly remember so much. I remember staring at him from across the stage in front of the Justice building, watching Prim stare at me, shocked at the sacrifice I made for her. I remember the games, when I thought he would die, but he didn't. The second games, when we were separated. When we rescued him from the capitol, when he was hi-jacked. When I had my bow and arrow aimed at Snow, ready to murder him, then quickly turned it on Coin. I was about to release the arrow, but instead I dropped the bow and arrow. I couldn't kill someone just because I didn't like them. I remember looking into his eyes as Snow orders his men to seize the both of us and drag us away to the Tribute Center, where also resides captive Effie Trinket, Haymitch Abernathy, and Gale Hawthorne, who I never liked that much anyways. We never see anyone else, they avoid us as much as possible, and I can tell why. We are the reason they are trapped here.

After a few minutes of changing my cloths to the traditional District 12 training outfit I have worn so many times, I find myself in another flashback:

I had my bow raised, aimed at Coin's heart. I could hear Haymitch's voice in my head: "Shoot straight, sweetheart." I was an inch away from releasing it when I just couldn't. My bow fell with a thud on the ground as I tried to run. Run anywhere. Away from the capitol and to the ruins of 12, where I could find my family. At least my mother. My father had been killed after my night lock trick in the 74th Hunger Games.

I couldn't get far at all before the grubby hands of a peacekeeper grabbed my arms and dragged me back. Dragged me to the now recovering Snow and dead Coin, who had been killed by a capitol resident by the name of Elliot West. She looks at my sadly before running off into the growing night. As the peacekeeper drags me, I see Peeta come into view, looking at me concerned.

"Get off me!" I hear the voice of Gale Hawthorne scream in a peacekeepers ear as he is dragged in between Peeta and I. With the whole of Panem's eyes on me, I close my eyes knowing there is now way out. That I had blown it. The Mockingjay couldn't fly, and now it's wings had been cut off.

"Madge? Madge? Madge!" I hear Peeta calling me, bringing me back to the present time. I realize I am sitting on the bathroom floor, slumped on the shower floor.

"I'm… I'm alright…" I say uncertainly. I quickly ready myself the rest of the way and walk out.

"Why are you crying?" Peeta looks very concerned as he looks to me again.

"I'm not crying" I reply simply, not realizing I am.

Peeta takes his finger and holds it under my eye, then shows me the tear on his finger. In response, I take my own hand to my face and bring back a tear on my finger. I could not believe I was crying, I felt no reason to.

"Come on," Peeta says, very gentle and caring. "We need to train."


End file.
